


In All That's Dark, Our Colors Bright

by A_Kid_Named_Hiro



Series: Tumblr Prompt Challenge [7]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Friendship, M/M, Romance, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-05-23 15:53:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 11,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14937335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Kid_Named_Hiro/pseuds/A_Kid_Named_Hiro
Summary: A nonlinear series of moments, between a man in a mirror and a boy on the other side.





	1. Morning

**Author's Note:**

> **[Prompt](https://otpprompts.tumblr.com/post/128341869576/au-where-person-a-is-trapped-in-a-mirror-for-all)** selected by **[Tuli-chan.](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tuliharja/pseuds/Tuliharja)**
> 
> The lovely art in the final chapter was created by **[my friend.](https://artflails.tumblr.com/)** Thanks so much for this amazing gift! :D

His days are broken in two. 

In moments spent within the cold walls of his lonely one bedroom apartment, in minutes spent outside of it.

These days, he tries to keep the latter to a minimum. 

He rises with the sun. He is not — has never been — a morning person, but he does this almost every day, to the screech of his alarm clock. It is old-fashioned, he knows, but effective in all its annoyance. 

The room is cold. He had fallen asleep, as he often does, with the window open. He glances, one bleary-eyed gaze, at the sun rising over the city, orange light over concrete and steel. From his seat on the bed, toes icy beneath the covers, everything looks so distant and so small. 

He yawns, loud and uncouth. Slides out of bed, still partially tangled in his sheets. The fluffy gray pillow he so cherishes slides with him, hits the hardwood floor in the precise moment his feet do. 

He stretches, fingers laced above his head, slender arms extended toward the ceiling, till he hears his back pop. He shuffles toward the bathroom. On his way, he passes the full-length mirror beside his closet. 

"Happy Morning," he mumbles.

The man in the mirror chuckles. In it, he hears familiar, amused fondness. "Happy New Morning, Madara."


	2. Empty

No pictures adorn the walls. 

This is the first thing Tobirama notices when Madara drags the mirror through every room in his apartment. 

It is a barren place. A lone gray couch in the living room. A low coffee table. An old TV. A table in the kitchen set for one. White tile and white walls. Gray pillows and gray curtains. 

A house that isn't, and a home that never was. 

Madara lives his life in monochrome. 

Tobirama lives his life in two. 

In things he knows, and things he doesn't. 

Tobirama knows the sound of his own name, the weight of _Madara's_ upon his tongue. Knows the deep dark of his dimension that is fathomless space and nothingness. Knows the grating sound the mirror's frame makes as Madara drags it across the floor. 

Knows the animated lilt of Madara's voice. The curve of his grin. The bright of his eyes. He is Lord and Master of his little palace in the heart of the city, playing at being tour guide, showing Tobirama around like an enthusiastic host. 

Tobirama is only too happy to listen. Happy to see Madara's eyes shine where they were once dulled with apathy, clouded with uncertainty.

What he does not know is the feel of food in his belly. The sensation of water sliding down his throat. The heat of Madara's skin. The taste of him when he's angry, when he's overjoyed, when he's broken and wrecked with hurt and pleasure. 

He does not know time, though Madara is ever enslaved by it. This alien concept, warped and twisted to stifle a human life. Madara lives his life in days and years, in age and schedules and obligatory routine. He lives in _late_ and _hurry up_ and _never enough._

Tobirama lives in darkness eternal. His only source of light, the window Madara calls a mirror.

Tobirama does not know the color of his eyes, the shade of his skin. He does not remember being born. Has a name he has always known and owned, and no one who gave it to him. He does not wake, for he does not sleep. He is not old, not young, not anything ruled by number and time and age. He simply, always _is._

Watching. Learning. _Being._

And he _hungers._


	3. Time

_Time isn't real._

Tobirama told him that once, and Madara thinks of it always. 

Days like today, like every moment he spends without Tobirama in it, when time seems especially interminable. 

He stares at the seconds ticking by on his laptop. The flashing time separators. The caret upon his blank document. _Blink, blink, blink._ The drone of his professor's voice shaped around a lecture Madara has long since given up paying attention to. 

Such is the rhythm of his life. 

It is — in Tobirama's absence — a crawling, enervating thing.

He keeps his usually obnoxious yawn stifled between his teeth, caged behind the firm press of his lips. _Time isn't real,_ he repeatedly — internally — chants, as much as the other part of his brain thinks, _Hurry up, Hurry up, Hurry the fuck up._

Madara _hates_ being nineteen. 

_Nineteen_ is three years left of school he doesn't care about. Two before he can legally drink. Four, maybe five, maybe fucking _thirty_ before he figures out a way to pay back all the cash his brother spent just so Madara could have his own place. 

This tiny measure of freedom, away from the ridiculous expectations and judgmental gazes of his parents. Away from the pressures of perfection.

Madara hates this _in betweenness._ Too young and unprepared for the rigors of adulthood. Too old for the irresponsibilities of a kid. 

He wishes, more than anything, to be free of time. 

To be, like Tobirama, _eternal._


	4. Watching

His eyes are ever sharp. 

They follow the boy, footsteps light upon the floorboards, as he makes his way across the room, toward the window. 

_How interesting,_ Tobirama thinks, the slightest of smiles curving his lips. That the boy would head first for the window, instead of the light switch. 

How appropriate, that their first meeting is one that's cloaked in darkness.

It is a rare thing, to find a human being so at home amid the dark. Already Tobirama feels a kind of kinship rising from his belly, spreading through blood and breath and bone. 

He _likes_ the boy, even before learning his name. 

He hears the window's panel slide open. Tobirama cannot see it from where he is, though he hears the deep _inhale-exhale_ of the boy's breath, pictures him leaning out into the night. 

A night that is both moonless and starless, for no familiar shine illuminates the floor. 

In all the time he'd spent in the company of those who never knew him, looking outside was a privilege not often granted. Seldom do people turn their mirrors toward their windows, but Tobirama is well acquainted with the pale glow of moonlight and starlight, the shadows that dance upon walls and floors in their wake.

What little light there is shines from the dimly flickering bulb in the hallway, creeping through the sliver of the partially opened door. 

The boy crosses to the bed and Tobirama is afforded a clear view. 

He watches the boy lean forward, pressing a single knee to the mattress as if testing its firmness, or perhaps, its bounce. Tobirama wonders if this boy — like so many others — has a proclivity for jumping on beds. 

The door is thrown open and light from the hallway fills the room. Beneath the annoying strobe, a shadow in the entrance of the bedroom. "What are you doing in the dark?"

Then, the familiar click of the switch, and the room is completely illuminated. 

The man in the doorway is one Tobirama has seen before. He remembers his name. 

_Uchiha Izuna._

He'd been here a few times, in the company of the realtor.

Izuna crosses his arms, leaning against the doorframe. "So? What do you think?"

Tobirama's attention returns to the boy. To his hair that's as long and dark as Izuna's. The paleness of his skin. The shape of his one visible eye. The fine bone structure and delicate features that resemble the man who Tobirama knows is his brother. 

He observes the awkward way with which the kid holds himself, as if he's got something to hide. "It's… alright," he says, nonchalant, and immediately Tobirama realizes what he's trying to disguise. 

Excitement. Eagerness. 

A kid beside himself with the prospect of independence, of freedom. 

Izuna isn't fooled. His laugh is a knowing thing. "You love it." He wrinkles his nose. "I'd seriously think about replacing that bed, though. Fuck knows what's been lying there."

The boy shrugs. "Whatever." He slides his hands into the front pockets of his black Skid Row hoodie. He turns his head, gaze locked upon Tobirama's, even if he most assuredly can't see him. "But I'm keeping the mirror."

He watches the boy. 

Watches him move in the next day, dragging furniture noisily across the floor, unpacking boxes and backpacks that contain more books than clothes. 

Never _stops_ watching him, _learning_ him.

This kid who paces the room when he reads aloud. Lies on the bed when he reads silently. Music is a constant thing. He dances, even though he's terrible at it. Jumps around playing air guitar, the worst moves to the best songs. He does all this as unselfconsciously as anyone would, when they think no one is watching.

But _Tobirama_ is. He watches the boy more intently than he has anyone else, commits his habits and quirks, his passions and abhorrences to memory.

Doorknobs double as clothes hangers. Books litter the floor, the nightstand, the bed, the desk. The furrow between his brows when he does his homework is ever present.

The consistent slide of the window, more _open_ than _shut._ His footfalls — covered and bare — upon the floor. The hiss of his lighter. The creak of the bed when he throws himself upon it. The sounds he makes when he pleasures himself.

Tobirama devours every sight, every sound. Craves taste and touch and scent of him. Wanting, always wanting.

It is, in the language of time, four months and seventeen days before Tobirama speaks and Uchiha Madara hears him.


	5. Landslide

He sits on the floor, in darkness he likes to imagine mirrors Tobirama's own. He sits with his legs folded sideways, leans his head against the mirror, feels smooth, cool glass against his temple.

In his hands, his iPad. He's showing Tobirama pictures of his family, his school, random shit in the city. Glimpses of his life outside the confines of this bedroom.

 _Landslide_ filters through the speakers, like a soundtrack to his life. He speaks around the cigarette that dangles from his lips. "This right here," he says, showing Tobirama a photo of an empty shopping cart. "It's the first picture I ever took."

He pictures Tobirama raising an eyebrow. Tobirama speaks — more often than not — in silence. 

Madara tries to learn Tobirama through these silences, these spaces between breaths, the quality of his quiet. Tobirama spent nearly five months observing him in silence. Madara knows how much Tobirama is capable of communicating with it. 

Still. He likes the sound of Tobirama's voice. It is the only part of him that proves Tobirama exists at all.

He pulls the cigarette from his lips. Watches the cherry fall, ash hitting the floor and skittering like dead leaves on a sidewalk. "Hey," Madara says. "Guess what I used to take this."

This time, he hears Tobirama smile. "Your iPad."

An erroneous answer, one deliberately made to keep the game going. Madara knows that Tobirama knows an iPad of this make hadn't been invented at the time. Tobirama notices so much more than Madara ever does. 

_And maybe,_ Madara dares hope, _Tobirama likes the sound of my voice too._

He takes a drag of his cigarette and grins. "Nah. It was the first camera I ever owned. I've still got it." He places his iPad upon the floor. Sets his cigarette atop his Coke can and stands, heads toward the closet. He rummages in the dark. Pulls a box from the top shelf and carries it to where Tobirama's most assuredly waiting. 

Madara pulls the camera from the box. "See? Akihito gave me this when I was thirteen. It's one of his old ones, y'know. Still needs film rolls and shit."

He holds the camera up, pretends he can see Tobirama through the viewfinder. "Say _snow-covered hills._ "

"Snow-covered hills," Tobirama says, and Madara can hear his laugh in it.

He presses the shutter release. He thinks, belatedly, that he probably should've found some film for this. He's heard of cameras capturing things that can't be seen. Wonders what Tobirama would look like in a photo.

The track has changed. Madara reclaims his seat upon the floor. This time, he rests his back against the mirror. He wants to face Tobirama, but it's weird, looking like he's talking to himself. 

He sits with his knees drawn up, smoking his cigarette, wondering if Tobirama's got his back against the glass too. Madara closes his eyes. He pretends he can feel the warmth of Tobirama's back, the strength of his spine, against his.

For a time, there is nothing but the sound of Madara's breath. Of _Heavy Crown_ playing softly on his iPad.

Then, Tobirama's voice cuts through the silence. "What's it like?"

Madara shifts, hoping that when he turns, he'd find Tobirama there. But it's only his reflection looking back. "Taking pictures?"

"Smoking."

"It's…" Madara exhales, staring at his cigarette as if it would explain this better than he can. "I don't know. It's… dry. Bitter. It smells like shit."

He can hear Tobirama's eyebrow raise again. "Why do you do it?"

Madara shrugs. "I don't know. Izuna smokes. So does Akihito."

"And why did Izuna start?"

Madara laughs. "To piss off our dad."

The silence that follows is contemplative. Madara likes to think himself an expert at deciphering Tobirama's not-words, all his hidden expressions.

"Sounds like Izuna likes pissing your dad off a lot," Tobirama remarks. A statement of fact, though Madara doesn't miss the unvoiced question.

He smokes his cigarette down to the filter. Dumps what's left of it in the Coke can. "My parents… they've gotta be the most conservative parents in New York. It's crazy they've lived here this long, y'know?"

Another track change. The first notes of _Dear God_ fill the room. Madara fiddles with the lens cap, removing and reattaching it repeatedly. "When my brother was born, Mom and Dad had all these expectations. Well, _Dad,_ mostly. It's like… you know the story of Kane and Abel, right? Well, Izuna was supposed to be the next William Kane. So you can imagine what happened when Dad found out that Izuna applied to Juilliard instead of Harvard. And that he'd eloped with someone _beneath his station._ Dad's own words. I think Dad was more upset about Akihito being a freelance photographer than a guy. Though he was pretty mad about that too."

"And your mom?"

"She… _tolerates_ it, I guess. She's a lot less vocal about her homophobia. If Dad's the blatant bigot, Mom's the subtle one. She still speaks to Izuna, even though Dad refuses to. He's even written him out of his will."

"I believe that would make your _dad_ William Kane. And Izuna would be Richard."

Madara snickers. "And Akihito would be Florentyna?"

He hears Tobirama smile again. "I suppose."

Madara grins. "So what would that make _me?_ "

Tobirama's smile grows louder. "You're just the guy living with the guy who lives in a mirror."

Madara laughs. "There wasn't a guy like that in the story."

"So we'll write our own."

His laughter dies out. Madara presses his hand to the glass. He can see the frustration written all over his reflection, in the anguish of his uncovered eye, the tension of his limbs. "I wish I could see you." 

Tobirama remains silent. Madara knows it's because it's not in his nature to make false assurances. To make promises he isn't certain he'll keep.

Madara keeps his hand firm upon the glass. He wonders if Tobirama is looking at him. If Tobirama is pressing his hand to his. Madara tries to imagine what that would feel like, without this cold, cruel barrier between them. "Are there others like you? People in other mirrors?"

"I don't know. If there are, I've never met them."

The track changes again. They listen to most of _I'll Follow You_ in silence. Till the final chorus, when Tobirama says, "So why a shopping cart?"

Madara laughs again. "Fuck if I know. It just seemed like a good idea at the time."


	6. Dancing

He is, to put it plainly, an awkward dancer. 

Tobirama thinks this, thinks him endearing, watching Madara move. He is swathed in the pale gold light of the lamp on his nightstand, dancing shirtless and barefoot along the wooden floor. He is the jerky, inelegant rhythm that reminds Tobirama of Billy in _Not Over You,_ the ridiculous, bizarre strut of Scott Weiland in _Fall to Pieces._

He dances with wild abandon and childish glee, unselfconscious as he always has been, even though he now knows he's being watched.

Tobirama watches him laugh, savors the notes of freedom he hears in it. Watches Madara spin and strut, bounce and bop, this slender-waisted thing clad in skinny jeans and freakish energy. 

He spins toward the mirror, catches himself with a sweaty hand that smudges the glass, as if it were _Tobirama_ who'd twirled him, _Tobirama_ who'd pulled him close.

Tobirama knows Madara's mind almost as much as Madara himself. 

He watches the hand upon the glass. Watches Madara's breath mist upon it. "Dance with me, Tobirama," he says. The gleam in his eye is sultry and mischievous and so goddamn _free,_ Tobirama very nearly envies him for it.

He doesn't. He would never begrudge Madara his freedom. His happiness matters too much.

"I _am,_ " Tobirama replies, as much a lie as it is the truth. 

He's got his palm against the glass, matching Madara's own. His side of the mirror is, as always, uncorrupted. He leaves no fingerprint, no cloud of breath upon his window. No reflection. No shadow. It is as if he doesn't exist at all. Not on the other side. Not even in his own dimension.

If Tobirama could not speak, could not see, could not feel the solid frame of his body, the steady _beat-beat-beat_ of his heart, he would question the reality of his own existence.

But he is, indisputably, _here._

Watching Madara with a hand on the mirror and a hand in his hair, hips slowing against the uptempo rhythm of the song that blares from the speakers of his iPad. 

The sweat that plasters his bangs to his forehead, to his ever concealed eye. Sweat that drips off his nose, clings to his neck, his chest, his belly, the way dark denim clings to his seductively swaying hips. 

His eyes, half-lidded. His lips, pulled into an attempt at a coquettish smile, widening moments later into a manic grin. His body that moves with music as much as barely contained laughter. He rakes his hand through his hair in what is clearly a parody of a sexy gesture, only to get stuck in the chaotic mess of it. 

It startles a laugh out of Tobirama's throat. 

Madara's grin widens. He pulls away from the mirror, walking backward with a hand in his hair, batting his eyes in a thoroughly exaggerated fashion, beckoning to Tobirama with a come hither finger. 

_Endearing indeed,_ Tobirama thinks, _in all that he does._

In the innocent awkwardness of his moves. In the way he pokes fun at hopeless romantic clichés, at gag-inducing flirtations, by making fun of himself. The way he so effortlessly loses himself. To music. To freedom. To _life._

Madara beckons and Tobirama follows. He imagines — not for the first time — that no barrier exists between them. No obstacle, physical or otherwise. No threat of passing time.

Tobirama pretends. That he's got Madara in his arms. His breath in Madara's hair. Madara's cheek against the side of his neck, his hands upon Tobirama's back, the press of his body against his. Close, so close.

For now there is only them, in this room, in this moment.

Dancing after midnight to _Dancing After Midnight,_ to the rhythm of their racing hearts.


	7. Alone

It hurts. 

He fights the current, and it is the most futile thing. He is battered by the ocean, waves that slam against him, break upon him, break _him._ Callous. Relentless.

Madara gasps and flails and fights and still he drowns. He cannot scream. Cannot advance. The sea has him at its mercy, flinging him about like a limp rag doll. He is cold, so cold. His bones are weighted things. His flesh, bruised. His body, broken. 

It hurts too goddamn much. 

He wonders why he fights. Why he cares to struggle at all. His limbs sag. He lets himself fall, down, down, down into the blackness of the ocean. He watches light fade. Feels breath leave what's left of his body. Around him, darkness unending. 

He falls. 

And he realizes, that this is the loneliest place in all the world.

  


* * *

  


He wakes to the sound of fireworks. 

His first thought is _the Fourth of July,_ till he realizes it's too cold for summer. The window is open. He can see it, the bright sparks of green and red and gold that light the midnight sky. 

For a moment, Madara is frozen. He cannot move. Cannot breathe. Sweat glistens upon his forehead, even in the cold. His limbs are torpid. His body hurts all over. 

"Bad dream?"

Tobirama's voice. A lot closer than it usually is. 

Madara sits up. Slowly. Achingly. He turns and notices the mirror by his bedside. Before him, the TV. _New York, New York._ Fireworks. Cheers and kisses and smiles all around.

It is a new year.

He remembers. Earlier that evening, he'd hauled the TV into his bedroom, dragged the mirror to his bedside so they could watch the ball drop together. He had wanted — _needed_ — it to happen _here._ In their bedroom, their sanctuary. The place they met. The place he'd hoped to have his first New Year kiss. 

"I missed it," Madara says. His voice is barely above a whisper. He hates the tremor in it. Hates the disappointment flooding his veins. He is shaken, not by the thought of having missed his chance to kiss Tobirama at midnight, but by the familiarity of his dream. Helpless. Hopeless. Loneliness he understands too goddamn well.

"Hey," Tobirama says, voice gentle. "What happened?"

Madara shivers. He should close the window, but he can't make himself move. He draws his knees to his chin. Wraps his arms around his legs. He can still feel the ocean, breaking him.

A thought rises in him. Unbidden and unwanted.

"What happens if the mirror breaks?" he asks, and even amid all this noise, he can hear that Tobirama did not anticipate his question. "Would you get out? Would you…?"

He cannot say it. Cannot unthink it. He hates this, hates himself, hates the paralyzing, terrifying _unknown_ of it all.

_Would you die?_

His question hangs there, heavy in the eerie-noisy-silence of his room. Darkness envelopes him. He can feel it closing in. Light and sound from the TV, from the city below them. Madara wonders if this is what it feels like in Tobirama's dimension. Light from a window, signs of life, a cruel tease.

No. A _taunt._

A blatant, garish display of what could never be.

Freedom. Or death.

An inhalation of breath. An exhale. The tremors don't stop. Madara can hear it in every bit of air he draws into his lungs. In every tremulous expulsion of it.

And Tobirama's breath is ever steady. "I don't know," he says, voice unbelievably, shockingly calm. "It's never happened before."


	8. Show

It feels like a prison.

Tobirama thinks this, trapped within the boundaries of limitless space, behind the glass that so cruelly keeps Madara — _his_ Madara — out of reach.

Madara, upon the bed, clothed in the fluorescent glow of the overhead light, in sweat and his own skin.

Madara, whose fingers mark a trail from his lips to his chest to his cock that lies hard and wet against the pale skin of his belly.

This is a mockery.

Tobirama knows this, knows that Madara does this for him with no malice, knows that he gives and gives all that Tobirama's willing to take.

But it feels like a mockery anyway, this cruel, heartless thing that's too fucking close and nowhere near enough.

The mirror had been moved to the foot of the bed. Upon it, Madara half-lies, all flushed face and spread knees, hand coming to wrap around his cock, moving in languid strokes.

Tobirama wants, more than anything, to be that hand.

This is the prettiest, cruelest display Tobirama has ever seen.

The fire in his belly. The hardness of his own cock, painfully constricted beneath the fabric of his pants. Tobirama hungers. He is touch-starved and still he denies himself. The only thing he wants to touch is Madara.

To feel the softness of his skin along the pale length of his body. To learn the heat of his flesh with his eyes, his fingers, his tongue, his _cock._ To know the taste of his own name upon Madara's breath.

_"Tobirama, Tobirama, Tobirama."_

It is the sweetest sound in all the world, the sweetest moment, watching Madara's lips part around the sound and shape of it. Precum beads upon the flushed head of his cock, slicks his fingers. Sweat glistens upon his skin. Tobirama wants to lick every drop of it, leave no part of him uncovered, no intimate place unreached.

Heat and want and _need_ within his visible eye.

Tobirama swallows against the lump in his throat. Madara is too beautiful, too _much._

It is impossible to keep his eyes upon anything but Madara. His gaze roams, hungry, desperate, _frustrated._

Over the pretty flush high upon Madara's cheeks. The lean column of his neck that's just _begging_ to be marked. The slender set of his shoulders. His nipples that are hard upon his chest. Tobirama wants to taste them, wants to lick his own trail down Madara's willing body. 

The hard length of his cock. The delicate skin of his balls. The tight, slick heat of his asshole. 

Tobirama wants to savor them all, _know_ them all, as well as he knows the hard lines of his own body, the darkness of his world, this deep, insatiable craving in his gut.

He burns to the marrow. Sex is no unfamiliar concept. He has lived too long, witnessed too many. Tobirama has watched, out of curiosity, of boredom, of amusement, but _this —_

This is the only one he watches out of _desire._

Madara's hand. It loosens its grip upon his pretty cock, ghosts over his balls, finds its way between the cleft of his ass. 

Tobirama watches — mouth dry, breaths coming hard and fast — as Madara fingers himself, lightly stroking his pucker, moaning Tobirama's name.

How he wishes he were that hand.

That finger, circling his hole, slipping inside, deeper, deeper. 

He watches Madara clench, watches him throw his head back, lift his hips, buck and cry out like a cock-starved whore. 

Tobirama's cock jumps in response. Pulses and aches with so much _need._ Still, he resists. He will not touch himself. Will not allow himself a distraction from this moment, this exquisite, breath-stealing torment.

"Tobirama," Madara gasps, moans, _pleads._ His dark gaze flits across the glass, as if searching for Tobirama's own. Tobirama knows that all Madara would find is his reflection, so gloriously debauched. He will not see Tobirama, tensed and entranced, _ravenous_ on the other side of this gelid, desolate prison.

A second finger joins the first. They thrust hard and fast, arrhythmic inside him. Tobirama can see Madara losing himself. The way his hand falters. The way his hips jerk. The way his voice sounds, high and broken around the incoherent echoes of his pleasure.

He comes, and it is the most beautiful, painful thing. 

Tobirama's eyes do not leave him, watching Madara's ass tighten around himself, the brilliant spurts of cum all over his belly, the way his body goes taut with pleasure.

He knows the sound Madara makes when he comes. Knows the strain of his body. The clench of his toes. The song of his stuttered breaths. 

Tobirama had seen all this before, when Madara was nothing but another stranger and he, a silent witness to the designs of his life.

Fire runs deep, makes blood simmer within his veins. Possessiveness roils and curls within him, nestles itself into his skeleton. He wants and _wants._

Tobirama smashes the side of his fist against the glass. It does not leave a crack.


	9. Somebody

Three minutes.

That's how long he's capable of holding his breath underwater. Three minutes before he feels the burn in his lungs, before it feels less like peace and a lot more like panic.

Less time than most of his favorite songs. Longer than average, but not nearly long enough.

Madara wonders — more often these days — what it would feel like to sink and not come back up.

He likes it here. Seated Indian style, fully clothed, at the bottom of the pool in which he'd spent so many moments of his childhood, hiding out. No breath. No sound. Nothing but tile and cold water lapping gently against him, submerging him in _calm_ and _quiet_ and the strange blueness of it all. 

It is here that time truly stills. Where _three minutes_ feels like an eternity.

How odd. 

He'd spent so many hours of his life, fantasizing, drowning in the vividness of his dreams. Wishing he were somewhere else. Some _one_ else. Seconds, minutes, moments that stretched into months that stretched into years, daydreaming of days he'd be freed from his immaculately gilded cage.

But look where he is now.

 _Nineteen_ is too young to be enduring his family, and still he endures them. These ridiculous family weekends imbued in pretension. Fake smiles and false sweetness and insufferable, questionable friends.

His family, and their perfectly curated life built upon a foundation of secrets and lies.

He waits till his vision begins to blacken, till his lungs feel like they might burst, too full of nothing in them, before he makes his way to the surface. Starlight upon his face. The sudden, shocking chill of the night air. Hair that clings to his cheeks, his neck, his back, the way his Guns N' Roses t-shirt hugs his frame, the way his jeans weighs him down.

He swallows air and sinks.

Somewhere in the palatial mansion that is his childhood home, his parents are probably fighting again. About Izuna. About Akihito. About _him._

His brother is the _disappointment,_ but Madara knows that he is — has always been — the _failure._

He is the child groomed to be nothing more than his brother's support, the shadow that dogs and worships Izuna's every step. The kid who his parents had no grandiose expectations of. Izuna would lead and he would follow, always.

Now Izuna is nothing and Madara is to be the picture perfect child his parents have always wanted.

He envies Tobirama his independence. His freedom from the thralls of an unrealistically demanding family. 

_Tobirama._

Madara wonders what he is doing now. Wonders if he would like being underwater. How long he'd hold his breath before his lungs gave out. How he would fare in an ocean that's hellbent on breaking every bone in his body.

He thinks that Tobirama would remain eerily, unerringly calm. Like water itself. Malleable and uncaring, fitting around the contours of a world that's shaped by the merciless flow of time. 

Tobirama, Madara realizes, is too much like nature, even if he exists outside the realms and logic of it.

He breaks the surface to draw more breath. He fleetingly considers quitting smoking, before returning to his place at the bottom of the pool, pretending there is no bottom, no boundary, nothing but boundless dark. 

He has — long before Tobirama — been accustomed to life in the dark. Madara is at home here, in cold nothingness. 

Much of his childhood, his teenagehood, was spent like this, dreaming, wanting, fervently _wishing_ he were anyplace but here. Wishing for freedom. To be messy and imperfect and to know that it was okay. To be somebody's _somebody._ Someone who'd see him, merely, as _himself._

Not Tajima's son. Not Izuna's brother. Not an Uchiha.

Madara thinks that he dreamed of Tobirama long before he knew of his existence.


	10. Dark

Nothing but dark.

Madara would not be coming home tonight. The room is an empty, lifeless thing without him in it. The windows are open. Moonlight spills upon the floor and all else is wrapped in shadow.

Tobirama's gaze upon the bed. He remembers the way Madara looked, pleasuring himself. Open. Compliant. No lie nor shame to cloak him. His cock pulses at the memory of it.

The button of his pants, undone. The zip, unfurled. Rustle of cloth. It all sounds so loud in this quiet place. Silent, but for the sound of his breaths. Tobirama turns. His back against the glass. His hand around himself. The velvet slide of his fist along his shaft. He thumbs the head of his cock, smearing precum. He imagines Madara's mouth around him.

What would he taste like, he wonders, upon Madara's tongue? What sounds would Madara make with Tobirama's cock down his throat? In the darkness, Tobirama sees him. On his knees, lips stretched pale and thin around him. Beautiful. Reverent.

Sharp hitch of his breath. Tobirama's grip tightens around his shaft. He imagines pulling out of Madara's mouth, sliding back in, watching himself slowly disappear inside. Inch by inch till he is completely sheathed in Madara's mouth. His balls against Madara's lower lip.

He reaches lower, caresses the soft skin of his sack, and imagines Madara's fingers upon him. Madara's touch, gentle and silk-soft and breath-haltingly hot. 

He sees Madara looking up at him. His bangs, brushed from his face. Fire in the dark depths of his eyes that matches Tobirama's own. The same want. The same greed. The same _need._

His breaths are louder in the dark. His hips snapping forward, thrusting with greater urgency into his own hand. He sees Madara, flush high on the fine lines of his pale cheeks, mouth full of cock. He can feel the wet warmth of him, so blissfuly tight all around him.

Would Madara reach between his legs, chasing his own pleasure, getting off to the taste and scent and sensation of Tobirama's cock inside him? Would he keep both hands upon Tobirama instead, ignoring his own need, because Tobirama's pleasure alone were enough? 

Tobirama thinks he would not care either way. Would _have_ him both ways. He wants too much. Wants to take all and leave nothing.

Heat. Within his blood. In his belly. In the column of his spine. Cold from the glass, through the fabric of his jacket, his shirt; a glaring contrast to the fire that blankets his skin.

He can hear Madara all around him. The symphony of his moans. He recalls Madara in the throes of orgasm, screaming his name. Thinks about how his name would sound within the confines of Madara's throat, choked off and muffled around his hard cock.

And Tobirama comes, in the dark, in the quiet, with a growl that sounds like Madara's name upon his lips.


	11. Invisible

Life is a loop. The present doesn't change. It's the past. It's the future. It's the hallways he walks in kindergarten, in grade school, middle school, high school, which seem interminably long. 

College is no different. There are these impossible parking lots, these overcrowded hallways. There are the desks in the back of the classrooms with their uncomfortable seats. The professors who all sound the same, who look as dead inside as he feels.

Life is one long moment, stretched over points in life that the movies and guidance counselors and motivational speakers tell you is the beginning of everything, and the people he meets are broken in two.

There are the people who approach him because of his family. And those who avoid him for the same reason. 

Madara thinks himself tired of this life. 

Here's how it goes. 

He keeps his hood up and his head down, earbuds in for good measure. His iPod is always on shuffle. Sometimes, it's one of his playlists. He's got playlists for everything. Today, it's the _scream-loud-enough-so-I-can-drown-in-all-this-noise-and-pretend-I-don't-exist_ playlist. 

His gaze is fixed upon the tops of his Doc Martens. He tries to ignore _life_ that goes on around him. Tries to pretend he isn't being stared at, called out to, gossiped about. In this crowd, he thinks he could — _should_ — be missed. Ignored. _Overlooked._

Every day is the same. Every day, Madara thinks, _What am I **doing** here?_

He has no answer. This is the no-name college his mother talked his father into letting him attend, just so he could learn how the other half lived. An average life. A regular college experience, so far removed from the Ivy League snobbery that every Uchiha before him adorns far easier than their own skin. 

This is the stop on the way to the house in the suburbs with the white picket fence. The hourlong commute into the city. The cubicle that is a prison in a nine to five that no one ever cares about but does anyway for the stupid little paycheck that in no way makes up for all the unrecognized, unacknowledged, unappreciated hard work. The countdown to retirement or death.

The life, Madara has been told, that is too far beneath him.

To his mother, this is the slack on his leash, reluctantly given in the hopes that it would keep him from rebelling as Izuna did. To his father, this is nothing but irrefutable proof that an Uchiha is meant to be better than everyone else. That following in the mediocre footsteps of his big brother is a decision most unwise. 

The brother who he was raised to look up to, to wish to be.

This is Hell. Of that, Madara is certain. His parents think themselves benevolent, and here he is, choking on the leash of a life he'd had no hand in planning since the moment of his conception.

The Average Joe. The Uchiha elite. The suck-ups, the hangers-on, the envious, the pretentious, and the hateful. Madara can find no difference, no glaring distinction, between them.

He has always known. From kindergarten to college, from his past that is his present that is his future. 

People are assholes.

Hating him for things he never chose. Despising, envying, bullying, molding, regretting him for who he is. For all the things he will not — _cannot_ — be. 

Someone once said that you had to risk your life to get love. Madara ponders this and wonders, if the life he risks would ever be his at all.

  


* * *

  


He sits on the window seat, staring out at the starless night. He watches ash fall from his cigarette, plummeting to the city below. He wonders what it'd feel like to fall.

He exhales, heavy in the dark. He doesn't look at the mirror when he asks, "If you could be anything for a day, anything at all, what would you be?"

 _"Free,"_ Tobirama tells him, with no hesitance, in a voice that is glass-smooth and midnight-quiet. "And you?"

Madara's jaw tenses. His eyes do not leave the city. This far up, he is tired and unafraid. He has long been accustomed to looking down. His voice is almost as quiet when he says, _"Invisible."_


	12. Forever

This is the moment it happens. 

He's leaning against the window, staring into the cold, comforting, cursed darkness of his dimension, listening to the tick of Madara's old-fashioned alarm clock. He thinks that time is a funny thing. Marvels at how loud everything sounds in Madara's absence.

He would be home soon. Tobirama knows this, instinctually. Not because he counts the seconds, minutes, hours from the moment Madara leaves his bedroom till the moment he returns.

He waits. He listens. He wonders when Madara stopped being _the boy_ and became simply _Madara_ in his head.

 _Tick. Tick. Tick._

Time-bomb loud, between the spaces of his breaths, his heartbeats. Time is an aberrant rhythm, a recondite concept. Tobirama is equal parts fascinated and disgusted by it.

The open and shut of the bedroom door. The hurried patter of Madara's feet. The thump of his backpack hitting the floor. The all too familiar sound of Madara throwing himself upon the bed. 

And his voice. Worn. Jaded. "I don't think I can do this anymore."

Tobirama listens and does not turn. He watches the dark. He knows, from the tone of his voice, that Madara isn't looking at him either.

Hands in his pockets. Head against the glass. To the darkness, Tobirama asks, "Do what?" But he is certain he already knows.

Rustle of cloth. Creak of springs. Madara must be turning on his side. His voice that indicates he's looking at the mirror. "School. _Life._ " Huff of breath. Exasperated. Burdened. Silence. The clock tick, tick, ticks.

His next words are preluded by a sigh. Then, a rush of breath. Words that stumble upon it. "Would you — ? I mean, have you ever thought, y'know, about the future? Wondered if it would be different. Or something."

Tobirama turns to look at him. 

Madara, on his side, picking at lint on his sheets. 

Madara, who looks drained and nervous and uncertain all at once.

"Sometimes," Tobirama says, in a voice that sounds too weary, too goddamn old. "Truth is, I could see myself standing here for the rest of my life. But sometimes, I think about it. Try to imagine what it would feel like."

"Freedom?"

"Being with you."

Madara smiles. This crooked, bitter, beautiful thing that seems almost as weary as Tobirama feels. "You _are_ with me."

Tobirama's smile matches Madara's own. He wonders what Madara would think if he could see it. "You know what I mean."

Madara rolls onto his back. Stares at the ceiling. His arms stretch upward, thumbs and index fingers stretched and angled into a frame. "I try to picture my future sometimes."

"And?"

Madara sighs, squinting through his pretend-viewfinder. "I can't. It's like I haven't _got_ one. There's my life, all mapped out, for the person I'm expected to be. But that's not really _me,_ y'know? It's… some warped, overachieving version of me."

His hands fall and he sits up, tilts his head back and eyes the mirror sideways. "And here I am. Stuck in a life I don't want, to avoid a life I don't want." 

He gets up, walks over to where Tobirama's standing, presses his hand, his forehead against the glass. " _This. You._ You're all I want." The sound of his sigh is a wistful, heartbreaking thing. "What's gonna happen to us? What if — ?" 

Tobirama hears it. The way breath stutters in Madara's throat. His shaky exhalation. Mist upon the mirror. In his voice, anger. Fear. Despair.

"What if I have to leave, and I can't bring you with me?"

This is the moment it happens. When he wishes that time would stop for Madara too.

But the clock keeps ticking.

And Tobirama realizes, that comfort is what he should offer. But he has never been good at comfort. All he knows — is able to give — is the truth. 

He bows his head. Presses his forehead to Madara's. Hand to hand. Imagines the warmth of his skin in place of cool glass. _Warmth._ "I would wait," Tobirama says, simple and matter-of-fact because it _is._ "I would wait forever."

Madara closes his eyes. Breathes out. "Forever is a long time."

If only it would melt away. The mirror. Time. Tobirama envisions their worlds fading to nothing. But the glass is ever impenetrable. And their universes are ever apart. 

He keeps his eyes open. He watches Madara breathe. Imagines he can hear his heart beat, so loud that it drowns out the ticking of the clock. And he says, "Forever's all I know."


	13. Shadow

Hands, upon him. Lips, dry and hot, curved into a snarl against his skin. Teeth, biting, tearing. Moistness upon his neck. Sweat. Blood. _Tongue._ Gentle upon bruised flesh. A contradiction. 

Those hands, everywhere at once. Around his back. Beneath the curve of his ass. Cold, against his spine. Heat, all over.

He is being fucked against the window. Strange. Some things don't make sense here. Something in the back of his mind, telling him that there should be a window seat. That he should be able to see his face. 

The man, holding him, fucking him, features cloaked in shadow.

Breath upon breath. Skin to skin. Madara feels the strength of his arms, the solid weight that presses him against the glass, _into_ it, as if he could weave him into its night-cold surface. 

Below them, the city. Lights and life. And here they are, so exposed, so invisible. Madara trembles at the thrill of it. 

Hard thrusts. Moans, loud, all of them pried with little effort from Madara's lips. A mouth upon his. Heat of breath. The man is quiet. It makes Madara too aware of every other sound around him.

Flesh against flesh. Rustle of hair, slide of skin against the glass. Beneath his palms, the hard line of broad shoulders. The man's mouth, upon his lips, his jaw, his clavicle. Teeth marking a blood-slick trail.

The man's fingers, drawing indiscernible patterns against the base of his spine. Squeezing his ass, denting flesh. Inside him, the man's cock. Large. Hot. Stretching him, filling him. Rapid thrusts. Slipping control.

Madara's spine that arches against the glass. His arms, his legs, his ass that tightens around the shadowed figure before him. Would he find bruises upon that skin tomorrow? As dark and glaringly visible as the ones that would surely adorn his own when the sun rises. 

The man thrusts harder. His breaths are louder now, harsh, short. Madara thinks he can hear his name upon them. 

He tightens his hold. The window is still bizarrely cold against his back, amid all this heat that rises and curls and cloaks them. It is strange, how all of this is foreign and not. How comforting, pleasing, terrifying it is.

Nothing but air beneath his feet. Nothing but heat and pleasure inside him. The slide of the man's cock against the slickness of him, the forceful-needy-gentle thrusts that kindle a fire deep within.

The sound of his name. Spoken, growled, _breathed_ in the dark, against his skin, his _self._

Tight heat within the depths of his belly. Like the hiss and flicker of a lighter flame, then the sudden, violent burst of a conflagration. In that single moment, Madara feels too much. 

A hand, warm and rough around his cock. The slide of well-timed fingers along his shaft, his underside, his slit. The sharp thrust, the spasm of the man's cock inside him. Wet warmth slicking his insides. Bruises upon his flesh. Cold glass cracking, breaking, splintering, rush of night air, roar of freezing wind, falling, falling, falling —

  


* * *

  


He wakes with a startled cry.

His eyes are wide, staring into darkness. Clock ticking. Hum of air conditioning. Breath, panicked, too loud. His pajamas that clings to his sweat-soaked skin. Cum, upon his cock, his belly, his pants. Vestiges of a name upon his lips.

Madara sits up. He looks to the window. Shut, unblemished, a view of lights that twinkle in the distance. Beneath it, the window seat. The chair in the corner. Unoccupied.

The sensation of eyes upon him. The sound of breath, too quiet to be his own, in the dark. A shiver up and down his spine, like fingers tapping a rhythm, drawing patterns, burning trails upon his skin.

He turns to the mirror. The sight of his own reflection, a silhouette in the dark. In his mind, strong arms. A powerful body. The outline of a bone-white jaw. A face that's cloaked in shadow.

Madara feels heat and cold. Upon him, inside him, all over. His heart thumps a harsh beat within his chest. He draws air into his lungs. Breathes out.

And he whispers, _"Tobirama."_


	14. Fall

He watches the world dim. 

This is his life. His role. A spectator to this endless reel of things that move along and die and begin again, rarely ever living. 

He watches, and he has always been content to remain here, cloaked in silence and detachment. No one has ever heard him, but how could they, when he has never deigned to speak? 

Until now. 

More than a year in the human measure of time. More than a year since he first spoke. 

Today, Madara is twenty. 

Tobirama watches him, arm stretched outside the open window, catching snowflakes in his palm. Day bleeds into night. A palette of orange and pink and blue-gray. Tobirama watches Madara's profile. The way a breeze lifts the hair from his face. The smoothness of his jaw, no hint of stubble upon it. The way his smile curves, molds his face into something that is happy and sad.

"Look," Madara says, turning toward him with his palm open, the melting snowflakes an offering. 

He watches them turn to little drops that glisten upon Madara's skin. Things that fall. Things that die. He wonders if this is what love is like. This repetitive cycle of descents and ends. 

_Would it be so bad to fall,_ Tobirama wonders, _if one doesn't fall alone?_

Madara gazes at him as if he can read his thoughts. Stares as if he can see him. Tobirama wants more than anything to believe that illusion.

Hunger seizes him. It is violent, sudden, _expected._ Hunger that gnaws at him, thrums and simmers beneath his skin, so loud, so present, it burns him to the marrow.

A greed that grows and grows.

He is not content. He watches Madara's eyes, the darkness within them, and thinks him weary. Madara is breaking. Of this, Tobirama is keenly aware. He is crumbling beneath the weight of their relationship. 

He understands better than anyone. To be so close, watching, always watching. His view is uncensored, limitless. To observe Madara at all moments till his image is a permanent brand upon the backs of Tobirama's eyelids. So close, so goddamn _close._

But the freedom to watch unrestricted is no freedom at all.

Tobirama knows the hunger that rushes like the blood within his veins. It has always been there, since the moment he first laid eyes on Madara. And it is a growing, restless thing.

 _He is twenty already,_ Tobirama thinks. Dread fills him, shockingly cold. It wars with the violent, scalding heat of his want, makes him nearly ill with malcontent.

_It isn't enough._

He realizes — horror and fascination a sickening churn within his bones — that this is the first moment he truly feels the burden of time.


	15. Abyss

He wants to be underwater. 

Wants it, though the sea frightens him. 

He stands upon the shoreline and recalls his dream. Recalls blackness closing in, insidious and horrific. Remembers cold. Remembers solitude.

It's strange. He watches the waves rushing toward him, breaking gently against his feet. Sand between his toes. How strange that the water is cool, soothing. The sea is nothing like the one in his dream, and still, he is afraid of it.

Madara looks to the horizon. Sun in his eyes. He squints against the brightness, but does not turn away. His arms hang limp by his sides. His hands are empty where they shouldn't be. 

He longs to feel Tobirama's hand in his. His hand would be warm. Madara is certain of this. Warm, and _strong._

Laughter reaches his ears and he turns his head. Sees Izuna and Akihito rolling around in the sand, tangled limbs and broad grins. They are both twenty-eight, and still, they wrestle like little kids, howl like hyperactive dogs. Uncaring of the world around them. 

He watches the way they look at each other, matching gazes of fondness and joy, and he knows that they see none else.

Madara returns his gaze to the ocean. He can feel the scowl twisting his face into something ugly. _Angry._

He envies them. Knows that he shouldn't, but he envies his brother as much as he loves him. For his freedom. For his _courage._

But could it really be called _courage_ if he were never truly afraid? 

Heat upon his skin, and yet he is cold. It spreads beneath his flesh, spreads out and around and all over. So much space and he cannot breathe. He misses Tobirama. He finds himself longing for the safe walls of their bedroom. Small. Quiet. Less alone.

He tries, desperately, to draw air into his lungs. His body is tense. Madara feels every muscle leaden with an unnamable weight. He wants to fall. Stick his face into these shallow waters and swallow salt and sand and stone.

 _Tobirama would love it here,_ he thinks.

Tobirama, endlessly captivated by videos and photographs of the world Madara has shown him.

Tobirama, vast and infinite and unstoppable as nature itself.

He would have brought him here. Would have secured the mirror to the front seat of Izuna's Camaro — strange looks and questions be damned — if he weren't so afraid of breaking it.

What would happen if the mirror breaks? That question terrifies and tempts him. Would Tobirama escape? Would he die? Would he shatter into as many pieces as the mirror does?

Or would everything remain as it is? As it always has been? If the glass were ground to dust, its frame burnt to nothingness, would Tobirama still be there, stuck forever in a windowless dimension?

Alone, in darkness forever.

Madara does not know. _Wants_ to know. Will not risk finding out.

He forces himself forward. A step is a heavy thing, but it comes, first one, then the next, then another. Water rises to his shins, his knees, his thighs. Now he stands, hip-deep. He feels too damn cold for the Fourth of July.

He closes his eyes against the sun. Focuses on the water, the way it breaks upon him, gentle and rough. He thinks about lying down. How much farther before the sand gives way to nothingness? Before water rises to his face, fills his nostrils, blurs his vision?

He wants to drown.

He wants Tobirama.

Hand on his shoulder. Madara's eyes snap open. His brother by his side, concern clearly etched upon his face. 

"What are you doing?"

Madara turns his face away. He does not want to look at Izuna. Is afraid of what — _how much_ — he would see. "Nothing," he says, wonders if Izuna can hear the hollowness in his voice.

 _There is nothing for me here,_ he thinks. _Nothing but the hamster wheel of life, turning, turning._

His eyes shut. He feels Izuna's hand slip from his shoulder. He can hear Akihito calling out to them. Izuna's saying, "Let's go back," but it's faded, distorted, the way everything twists and stretches and blurs underwater.

He remembers the pain of the ocean, breaking, breaking.

_I have fallen into the abyss._

He thinks this and wonders if he would ever get out. If the abyss would be such a lonely place if he weren't alone.


	16. Bright

There is a hand in his.

It belongs to the boy, the one with the wildfire eyes, his gun-spark spirit. 

Around them, the world. _Life,_ as it passes. Tobirama is aware — distinctly, peripherally — of this. He feels the seasons change. Bodies in motion. Surging, running, fleeting. Sand in an hourglass.

But the boy — the man — holds his gaze. 

Madara's hand is warm. His fingers, slender. Callused from years of homework and guitar practice. 

Tobirama stares at that hand, heedless of the world that moves on without them. He studies the lines of Madara's palm as if he could read all the paths of his life in them.

He looks at Madara who looks at him. Tobirama does not find his reflection in Madara's eyes. He finds curiosity. Empathy. Loneliness. Desire. Restraint.

He looks at Madara — _alive,_ so _alive_ — and sees all the things he knows and all that he fell in love with.

They stand amid chaos. Hand in hand. Gaze to gaze.

  


* * *

  


Tobirama wakes up. 

He wakes, even though he has never slept.

  


* * *

  


"Have you ever dreamed while awake?" 

He asks this of Madara, watching him get dressed for school. He likes how Madara rarely combs his hair. Likes how he pulls clothes from his closet at random. How he hardly looks at himself in the mirror.

"Sometimes." The button of his jeans, fastened. The Green Day hoodie pulled over his head. "Do daydreams count?"

"No. This is… quite different." He wonders, as the words leave his mouth, how he knows this. Tobirama has never — conventionally — had a dream. Has nothing to compare it to.

"Did you have a dream, Tobirama?"

He smiles. It is a quiet thing. "I had your hand in mine."

Intake of breath. Tobirama can hear the pleased excitement in it. 

Madara's hand against the mirror. A smile in his voice. Curiosity and wonderment in his eyes. "What did it feel like?"

Tobirama watches Madara's breath mist upon the glass. He places his hand against Madara's. Finger to finger. Palm to palm. His hand dwarfs Madara's own. 

He sees Madara, standing before him. He thinks about the dream. "Warm," he says. 

Their hands, touching. Madara looks so much like he did in the dream. His eyes, aflame with emotion. Unguarded. Honest.

Tobirama closes his eyes. He keeps his hand against the glass. He thinks their hearts beat in sync. He wishes he could hear it, the melody they would make. 

There is a song taking shape in his head. He loses himself in it.

  


* * *

  


A startled cry. Tobirama's eyes snap open at the sound — the shock — of it. Madara still stands before him, hand still pressed to the mirror, though his head is turned toward the window.

And Tobirama sees it. Darkness comes, swift and fierce. Darkness upon the room, creeping in, covering all where light ought to be. 

And Madara, fall-bright and _alive,_ painted in shadow.


	17. Eclipse

Darkness in daylight. 

It pours through the open window, a rapid shadow. Madara's first thought is of Tobirama. Always in the dark, waiting. He turns to the mirror and sees his own hand, darkened beneath this not-light. 

He reaches out, both arms stretching, grasping. Panicked. Madara can't fathom what is happening. Tobirama is a constant thought. He is there. He is safety. Madara screams his name. Reaching, reaching. If only there were no barrier between them. If only — 

Hands. Against his. Fingers to fingers, palms touching. Skin, warm and rough. Fingers curling, entwining. Pulling. 

Flash of white amid dark. Madara feels himself pulled in, hard, fast. Colliding against a body. Warm. Like blood. Like a heartbeat. Like _life._

  


* * *

  


He is here. 

All the questions, the _how,_ the _why,_ suddenly seem unimportant.

Arms around him. He knows the strength of them. The same strength he'd felt in his dream. Madara shuts his eyes against the darkness. Breathes in. He smells… _clean._ Like glass. Cold, like frost. Like a thunderstorm. _Alive._

"I'm here," he says. His voice. The same and different. So close. So _there._

Warm breath upon the crown of his head. Heart beating a song against his ear. Madara feels his own heart beat a response. His pulse, his breath, quickened.

He clings to the body he's pressed against. Feels fabric wrinkle beneath the curl of his fingers. Allows himself to be held. Lets himself fall.

  


* * *

  


He opens his eyes. Daylight everywhere. It is morning again, as it was, as it ought to be.

White fabric beneath his cheek. The arms around him loosen, but do not fall away. He looks up. 

That powerful body. That bone-white jaw. That face that's no longer cloaked in shadow.

Madara stares at the lines of his cheekbones. His perfectly symmetrical nose. His eyes, darker than Madara's own, sharp like finely cut diamonds. Otherworldly.

His skin, pale like polished marble. Tall. Terrible. He is human and not. Nature and anomaly. 

Madara's eyes trace the topography of him. The sharp spikes of his cocaine white hair. The serenity and severity of his face. The set of his broad shoulders, filling out his impeccable suit. The top three buttons of his white shirt are undone. Glimpse of sharp collarbones, a solid chest beneath. Madara feels himself swallow.

"Tobirama." He breathes his name like air. Like wonder. Like _finally._

Tobirama smiles. It is beautiful. Dangerous. Fond. _Hungry._ "Madara," he says. 

It is the sweetest sound in all the world.

  


* * *

  


Somewhere inside, he feels his heart break. It splinters and rights itself, and it is terrifying and exhilarating all at once. He feels his blood, rushing, singing, calling out. Pulled toward all that is Tobirama. 

Madara cannot fight it. Does not want to. He feels himself shiver. Flings himself against Tobirama, arms coming to curl around his neck, to tangle in the edges of his hair. Their bodies so close. 

"Tobirama," he cries out. _"Tobirama, Tobirama, Tobirama."_ He hears the hitch in his voice. Feels the dampness of his eyes, his cheeks. He is crying. He cannot find it in himself to care. Tobirama has already seen all his sides. He has no reason to feel self-conscious now.

He feels Tobirama's arms tighten around him. Fingers in his hair, caressing. Reassuring. Warmth all over. 

A single hand, coming around to brush the hair from his face. Gentle graze of knuckles against his cheek. Madara looks up to find Tobirama staring at him. With those eyes, dark like a fathomless abyss. Blazing with want that Madara is certain mirrors his own.

He licks his lips, more out of nervousness than anticipation. 

Tobirama's arm, coming to curve around the back of his neck. Cupping his chin. Thumb brushing the dampness of his cheek. Madara feels his skin warm beneath Tobirama's touch.

Tobirama lowers his head. Presses his lips to Madara's. 

And Madara feels all thought leave him. Feels his world narrow down to this single moment. Tobirama's lips. Rough and sweet like the rest of him. A contradiction, always. Heat that tingles through his skin, blazes beneath his veins. His blood, his heart, his _soul_ drawn to the pull of Tobirama like the call of a turbulent ocean beneath a cliff.

His lips part. He feels Tobirama's tongue, slipping in, finding his own. Feels Tobirama tasting him.

Tobirama, who tastes like winter and warmth and want.

Tobirama, who is blood and breath and bone, everlasting.

Madara drinks Tobirama's kisses like water, like air, and feels himself consumed.

  


* * *

  


They fall upon the bed. The pillows are unkindly shoved to the floor, where their clothes lie in crumpled, scattered trails.

They fall, tangle of breath and limb and flesh.

Tobirama is always there, always touching. Madara feels Tobirama's lips against the corner of his mouth. Upon his jaw, his chin, his neck. Feels teeth sink into the sensitive patch of skin that's just above his clavicle. 

A sharp gasp is torn from his lips the way blood is drawn from his flesh. He feels the gentle swipe of Tobirama's tongue, tasting him. Like his dream, but better.

 _Everything_ is better here. Beneath Tobirama's touch, within his hold, Madara feels safe. Desired. _Appreciated._

 _"Madara,"_ Tobirama breathes. Lips to skin, curving, tasting, devouring. 

Here in Tobirama's arms, beneath his gaze, Madara feels truly _seen._

Tobirama looks at him like he matters. Like he's _enough,_ just as he is.

He reaches for the lube upon the nightstand. Presses the tube into Tobirama's hand. Their gazes are locked. Madara watches the flare of Tobirama's eyes, like black lightning. Knows himself happy to burn beneath that dark stare.

He lies there, entranced. Lifts his hips, spreads his legs. The way he's done, so many times before now, before the mirror. Wondering what Tobirama would look like, watching him. 

And here he is now, beneath the heat of that intense gaze. Fingers slick against him. Tobirama gently traces circles against his entrance, coating him. Madara moans like a cock-hungry whore, doesn't miss the way Tobirama's gaze darkens at the sound.

Then Tobirama is _there,_ pushing in. The heat of his cock, sliding in, stretching him more than he'd anticipated, filling him. 

Madara cries out. It is pain and pleasure all at once. Discomfort and strangeness and familiarity. _Heat,_ all over. Fresh tears upon his lashes.

Tobirama's fingers, caressing him from chest to hip. Soothing. His lips, silent where his eyes aren't.

Madara's fingers tightening around the sheets. His lip between his teeth. It is difficult to breathe, but Tobirama is there, watching him, guiding him, and he does. He recalls the rhythm of Tobirama's heart. Times his breaths to it.

Tobirama is fully sheathed inside him. He stills. 

They stay that way, simply _looking_ at each other. Breathing. _Being._

Madara is dizzy from the feel of Tobirama inside him, above him, all over him. He reaches upward, curling and locking his fingers around Tobirama's nape. Holds on like he won't let go.

Tobirama's forehead against his. An exhalation. Gaze to gaze. 

Then, Tobirama pulls almost all the way out, slides back in. Their mouths meet. Their bodies set a rhythm. Madara feels his skin afire. 

Tobirama's hands in his hair. Upon his face, his neck, his body. They kiss and kiss. Madara's legs wrap around Tobirama's waist, thighs pressed tight against his ribs. His cock, wet and throbbing, between them.

Tobirama's cock inside him, large and flame-hot. Madara clenches hard, hears the sharp intake of Tobirama's breath. He knows it well. He's heard it before, through glass. Now Tobirama breathes it in all this shared air between them.

Their eyes meet. Tobirama always says so much in silence, and Madara has long since learned to read every nuance of Tobirama's breath, his soundlessness.

Now, Madara learns to read his gaze. He looks into the dark lakes of Tobirama's eyes and sees _everything._

  


* * *

  


They come.

Tobirama's name is a scream upon Madara's lips. His own is a breath, a hissed exhalation from Tobirama's lungs.

They come in the same moment, breathing in tandem, hearts beating in sync.

  


* * *

  


Light upon them. 

Madara's head upon Tobirama's chest. Himself in Tobirama's arms. He feels a kiss upon his hair. Looks up to meet Tobirama's gaze, blazing black.

He thinks about the mirror. Of Tobirama, trapped in shadow. Of the darkness that nearly consumed him.

He says, "Don't leave me."

Tobirama doesn't.


	18. Moonlight

They watch the world dim. 

From where they stand, it looks like the sun is sinking into the ocean. The view thieves Tobirama of his breath. He would never tire of this, no matter how many times he's seen it.

In his arms, Madara. The shape of his body, against Tobirama's own. Back to chest. Hair beneath Tobirama's chin. His arms around Madara's waist, palms resting upon his torso. Madara's hands upon his.

This too, is breathtaking. This too, Tobirama never tires of.

Softly, he sings. Watches the roll of waves and recalls Madara dancing, the print of his sweat-slicked hand upon the mirror. He sings about dancing across the ocean. He tells Madara, _"Right now, I'm here."_

The sun is gone. The moon rises in its place. 

"Happy Evening," Madara says.

Tobirama presses his smile atop Madara's head. He watches the moonlight dancing upon the tide. Says, "Happy New Evening, Madara."

**Author's Note:**

>  
> 
>   
> 


End file.
